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A Phrase for Safety After 9/11 Goes Global

The slogan, “If you see something, say something,” was written on Sept. 12, 2001, by Allen Kay, who wanted to help prevent disasters like the one the day before.Credit
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

The Times Square street vendors who alerted the police to a smoking Nissan Pathfinder on May 1 seemed to be acting on a combination of their streetwise instincts, their sense of civic duty, their military training and the advice of Allen Kay.

They did not know Mr. Kay personally. But they were familiar with his work.

As chairman and chief executive of the Manhattan advertising agency Korey Kay & Partners, Mr. Kay has written about half of more than 80 slogans that the company has created since its founding in 1982. The tagline for EmigrantDirect, an online banking division of Emigrant Bank — “More Money for Your Money” — was his. The one for Stuart Weitzman, the women’s shoe maker — “A Little Obsessed With Shoes” — was his, too.

Of course, the vendors who noticed the smoking Pathfinder had a different one in mind: “If You See Something, Say Something.”

The phrase was coined by Mr. Kay for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, one of his company’s clients. The day after Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Kay sat in his office on Fifth Avenue and wrote the slogan on one of the 3-by-5-inch index cards he carries around to jot down ideas. The company had already done advertising work for the authority, but Mr. Kay created “If You See Something, Say Something” before transit officials even asked. He said he wanted to help prevent another disaster and to do something positive in the aftermath of the attacks.

In 2002, the transportation agency saw a need for a security-awareness campaign to encourage customers to report suspicious activity or unattended packages, and they turned to Mr. Kay, who still had the phrase on his index card. By January 2003, the slogan was on posters and placards in subway cars, buses and trains.

It has since become a global phenomenon — the homeland security equivalent of the “Just Do It”Nike advertisement — and has appeared in public transportation systems in Oregon, Texas, Florida, Australia and Canada, among others. Locally, the phrase captured, with six simple words and one comma, the security consciousness and dread of the times, the “I ♥ NY” of post-9/11 New York City.

The transportation authority received a trademark on the slogan from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, though unauthorized uses appear to outnumber authorized ones.

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“I got it because I love the subway,” said Ms. Rumore, 31, who tattooed the slogan (in English and Spanish) on her leg in 2007.Credit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

A Google search of the exact phrase produces more than 390,000 results.

The phrase is the name of a song by the alternative-rock group Taking Back Sunday, a critically acclaimed monologue by the performer Mike Daisey and a book about the work of the French photographer Touhami Ennadre. It has been displayed on buses and billboards throughout Ohio, courtesy of the state’s homeland security office. And it has appeared on the flesh of at least one New Yorker, Joy Rumore, 31, who tattooed the slogan (in English and Spanish) on her right leg in 2007, in the same font and style on the subway posters.

“It was just sort of a geeky thing to do,” said Ms. Rumore, the owner of Twelve 28 Tattoo in Brooklyn. “I didn’t get it to make some sort of political statement. I got it because I love the subway. I love New York. It’s just an identifiable logo.”

City leaders, transportation authority officials and marketing experts have praised the line for making New Yorkers more alert to suspicious activity and for helping to reverse the see-something-do-nothing syndrome epitomized by the 1964 killing of Kitty Genovese, whose screams as she was being stabbed to death in Kew Gardens, Queens, were heard by numerous neighbors who failed to call the police.

The campaign urges people to call a counter-terrorism hot line, 1-888-NYC-SAFE. Police officials said 16,191 calls were received last year, down from 27,127 in 2008.

“It’s strong, it’s simple and it’s a call to action,” said Mary Warlick, the chief executive of the One Club, a nonprofit organization that honors creative work in advertising. “At the same time, everybody feels a little bit better because here’s a line of advertising that did some good.”

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The slogan was written on Sept. 12, 2001, by Allen Kay, who wanted to help prevent disasters like the one that occurred the day before.Credit
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

But the phrase has been criticized by many for fueling paranoia and fear. It has been parodied, mocked and twisted around by artists and activists (“If You Fear Something, You’ll See Something,” reads a flier on www.fulana.org).

“It’s an innocent phrase but it has come to have a real Orwellian tinge,” said Bill Dobbs, a civil liberties and gay rights advocate. “The phrase has come to mean, ‘Go get the cops.’ It’s not an invitation to citizen engagement. It puts everybody under suspicion.

“We New Yorkers do need to bear in mind what happened on 9/11, but common sense and real community, watching out for each other, is the key, not just calling the cops. Common sense saved the day in Times Square, not an ad campaign.”

Mr. Kay said his objective at the time he wrote the line was not to channel Orwell, but rather to save lives. “I’m proud of what it’s done and the potential it has to do more,” he said of the slogan. “Some things you just can’t stop. But if it is stoppable, and that thought makes someone think twice and say something that stops something, that’s its reason for being.”

The transportation authority has spent $2 million to $3 million a year on the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign for radio, television and print advertisements, with much of the money coming from grants from the federal Homeland Security Department.

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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority rolled out the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign in 2003. Credit
Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Since obtaining the trademark in 2007, the authority has granted permission to use the phrase in public awareness campaigns to 54 organizations in the United States and overseas, like Amtrak, the ChicagoTransit Authority, the emergency management office at Stony Brook University and three states in Australia.

The authority has not charged for such uses of the slogan. Some requests have been rejected, including one from a university that wanted to use it to address a series of dormitory burglaries.

“The intent of the slogan is to focus on terrorism activity, not crime, and we felt that use in other spheres would water down its effectiveness,” said Christopher Boylan, an M.T.A. spokesman.

Last year, well before the street vendors were prompted to put Mr. Kay’s slogan into practice, a man at 22nd Street and Park Avenue was seen placing a metal box with wires sticking out of it on a window ledge in front of a subway entrance and then disappearing around the corner. A call was made to the hot line, and officers showed up in less than a minute.

The caller saw something and said something, all while waiting for his wife to come out of the supermarket. It was Mr. Kay.

A version of this article appears in print on May 11, 2010, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: A Phrase For Safety After 9/11 Goes Global. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe